Worship Pastor | Search Update

Many of you have been asking about the worship pastor search and where we stand.  This will update you on our goal, our process, and our progress to date.

Goal

We are searching for a capable, experienced person who understands modern contemporary worship.  Hybrid leaders (who are trained for choral leadership and modern contemporary leadership) are extremely rare.  They come from different sources, experiences, and cultures.  So, we have moved our choral groups to the traditional service and Albert Love now leads them in conjunction with our traditional worship service at 8 am on Sundays.  We are searching for someone who understands how to create and lead a modern contemporary style.

Process

Members of our band and vocal teams have joined our personnel team and pastor to conduct a nationwide search across many different boundaries to find the best fit for our church.  This team works on the search every week (and our pastor works on it every single day).  We have subscribed to staffing sites that provide resumes and we have placed ads asking for recommendations and applicants.

Progress

Since April, we have received 173 applicants from 32 states & two foreign countries.  We have screened every one of them, conducted online interviews, and processed through several cycles of consideration and evaluation.  At present, we have three active candidates being considered seriously.  In addition to these direct applications, we have reviewed over 700 other resumes and referrals, evaluating both resumes and recordings of their leadership.  After 36 weeks of our search, we have now “visited” 900 churches in evaluating possible candidates.

Our team will convene again next week to critically evaluate interview transcripts, recordings, and new resumes.  So please pray for our team.

Interim Arrangements

Michael Sanders, our tech team, and our worship vocalists & band have continued to serve our church faithfully, both on-campus and online.  Michael has been juggling three different jobs during our search.  Please encourage them and thank them for faithfully serving our church family.  Pray especially for Michael as he carries this additional responsibility.